Hillary Clinton hit Barack Obama on Reverend Jeremiah Wright even as critics slammed her for fibbing about Bosnian sniper fire, Sean Combs smacked down rumors that he was involved with Tupac's shooting, and other events of the week that was.

You may have seen a bunch of renderings of potential designs for the land above the Hudson Yards in this morning's papers. But as one of the teams' lead architects pointed out to us, "The challenge is, your eye immediately goes to the buildings, but it's unlikely any of the buildings are going to look like this. That's the challenge to the MTA, to boil down fundamental issues for the public." So instead, we're giving you one of the images that probably will find its way into reality if its team is selected — one for the long, narrow green space looking eastward from the Durst/Vornado proposal. That might just be the glass arc over the proposed Moynihan Station that you see in the distance. But meanwhile, what is Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling doing in the foreground on the right? —Alec AppelbaumRelated:The Next 'West' Thing [NYP]
Five Companies Bid to Remake Six Blocks of Hudson Yards Area [NYDN]
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Diana Taylor, Mayor Bloomberg's girlfriend, just snagged herself a new government job: Governor Spitzer announced her appointment today as head of the Hudson River Park Trust, the state entity in charge of converting land along the West Side Highway into a paradise of playgrounds and boat launches and bike paths. After a career in finance, Taylor joined the governor's office in the Pataki administration. In 2003, he appointed her New York State's superintendent of banks, a position she held until February, when she stepped down to join a private investment firm. Her new post will be about as hard as any we can imagine: The trust is regularly lambasted from all sides. Everyone from powerful developers like Times Square landlord Doug Durst to the aging hippies who run the free-kayak program routinely fault it for either regulating too heavily or moving too lethargically. Even worse, when a developer is selected for the MTA's Hudson Yards site, which should happen this fall, a whole new tangle of questions will arise about access and development rights. A relocation to Washington, D.C., might start to seem like a good exit strategy. —Alec AppelbaumREAD MORE »

When Governor Spitzer held a press conference Friday to announce the state was opening bidding for the 12-million-square-foot Hudson Yards site, he mentioned another bit of redevelopment in the works for the West Side: an imminent overhaul of the Port Authority Bus Terminal. Which promptly sent us scurrying to the Port Authority's Website, looking for details. We turned up these renderings and these optimistic stats: Apparently they're planning 55,000 square feet of spiffed-up stores, 26 new bus gates, and a bright office tower on top. Even if the building doesn't look too architecturally interesting, it's still nice to imagine a presentable depot. Just don't count on it anytime soon; feasibility studies will be ongoing till 2009. —Alec AppelbaumEarlier:You Wanna Buy a Rail Yard?READ MORE »

So, once again: Any takers for the West Side rail yards? You know, the 26 acres of relative wasteland along Eleventh Avenue, from 30th to 33rd Street? The state and the yards' current owner, the MTA, formally announced today that it will be accepting bids for the whole shebang. The part of the offering that City Hall will like: twelve acres of greenery and a "cultural center." The part the developers will like: residential "skyscrapers up to 70 stories tall." The usual suspects are expected to come a-courting: Tishman Speyer, Brookfield, the Durst Organization, and Vornado (the last two working in concert). And the part that we find immensely curious: The buyers will be required to submit separate bids "with" and "without" the High Line, a stretch of which grazes the yards. Which means, in essence, that nobody — least of all the sellers — has any idea whatsoever how that one will play out.
Bids to Be Sought for West Side Railyards [NYT]
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